COCHRANE— The Town of Cochrane will be testing roughly 60 homes at random to determine lead levels in the residential water system as part of Alberta Environment and Parks’ assessment after Health Canada announced changes to maximum allowable lead levels in drinking water.
Health Canada recently announced that the maximum allowable levels of lead were dropping from 0.010 milligrams per litre, to 0.005 milligrams per litre.
Water is considered lead-free at levels under 0.00005 milligrams per litre.
The sampling is required in all municipalities as a precautionary investigation undertaken by Alberta Environment and Parks.
A press release issued by the Town points out that much of Cochrane’s water infrastructure was installed in the 1950s and 60s, when copper was the dominant material used to make pipes.
Town of Cochrane water/wastewater manager Troy Sylvestre said that there is little concern there is significant lead levels in the water given the mostly copper infrastructure.
“There isn’t suspicion that there is, and certainly in there was, there would be concern,” said Sylvestre. “We’ve done quite a bit of water main replacement, that also included replacing the service lines to properties, and we haven’t encountered any lead services. That is what gives us a little more confidence in relation to all of this.”
Some homes built in the 1975 would occasionally use lead products during construction.
“Municipalities in the past had had lead concerns in relations to the lead service lines had more or less been testing just up until the property line, so they weren’t necessarily looking at what was on the property, as well as fixtures,” he said. “The government’s kind of changed things a little bit, and they would like us to test within the home, that would also include some of the piping and the soldering.”
While the Town has data on its water infrastructure, Sylvestre said, they hope to learn more about the distribution systems in residences.
“We don’t have any lead water mains or anything like that, we shouldn’t run into that problem. Really what we’re targeting are the lead services at this juncture,” he said.
If lead is discovered in any residence, the Town will move to phase two of the project, which would include testing more homes in the neighbourhood.
Ingesting lead can lead to developmental issues in children, high blood pressure, heart disease and cause kidney damage, among other things.
If lead is found in any resident’s water, there are a few courses of action they can take, Sylvestre said.
“One would be ensuring that you’re cleaning any of the screens on your taps that you draw drinking water from, the next would be to install a point of use filter. Those point of use filters actually reduce the lead down into safe levels,” he said.
After the volunteer households have been identified, and samples are collected via curbside pickup, the samples will be shipped to an independent laboratory for testing.
Testing is expected to begin in May and the program is expected to wrap up in September.
To find out more about the program, visit cochrane.ca/watertesting/.
